Scary Christmas Eve

 

Tuesday night I was checking what type of battery one of Annie’s toys took to see if I could replace them. There were three small button batteries (not the flat lithium kind).  We were headed out the door and in a hurry so I put the battery cover back on the toy and screwed the screw in part way, fully intending to tighten it all the way later.

Well, I forgot. And the next day I put the toy on the floor and Natalie got to it. Colin heard her cough and looked at her and saw two batteries on the floor. He yelled to me to ask how many batteries there were. I am very well aware the danger and damage these batteries can do in kid’s stomachs so I am freaking out and pretty much kept that up the entire day.

I hurried and threw on some clothes and shoes and started calling the pediatrician’s office—closed for Christmas eve, and the closest urgent care—closed for Christmas eve, so I drove her the 15 minutes through the awful Christmas eve traffic across the valley to the AF Hospital ER. Because most doctor’s offices and Urgent Care places were closed, the ER was way backed up. They gave Natalie precedence because of her age and situation but everything still took forever—waiting to be admitted, waiting to see a doctor, waiting for the x-ray (which showed the battery clearly in her stomach), waiting for the doctor to look at the x-ray and to proceed.  

The ER doctor came and said the good news was that it was still in her stomach which is easy to get out; the bad news is that the only Pediatric GI doctor in Utah County wasn’t on call that day for the holiday. He said he was sending us up to Primary Children’s in SLC. It was at this point that I fell apart. I knew things were serious, but in my mind only kids that are in really bad shape and near death get sent to Primary Children’s. Also the thought of driving all the way up to SLC through the traffic, to a place I’ve never been to before, with a hungry and tired baby was more than I could take. I called Colin and he could tell things were worse than I could handle.

I didn’t want to waste any more time to go get Colin so I just drove up at a much to fast speed up to SLC. I got there in record time. Colin in the mean time made a decision and got my visiting teacher to watch the kids while my sister came to get them. She took them down to her house and they enjoyed a normal Christmas Eve there which I am forever grateful. Colin headed up to Salt Lake.

I had always heard how amazing Primary Children’s was and I always hoped I’d never get to find out. But it’s true. Every person I came into contact with was extremely good at what they do. I felt so much more at ease once I walked in the doors. They were expecting us and things went a little more quickly at Primary’s. I met with the GI doctors who were both from India. The only real waiting at Primary’s was for our turn in the O.R. (about an hour)   

Throughout the entire day, Natalie was asymptomatic. I couldn’t feed her and she was missing naps, but even despite that she was very pleasant for all the nurses and doctors. She got complement after complement on how cute she was and how pretty her eyes were. The nurse put an IV in. I was impressed she got it in the first time on such a little hand/vein (again, hooray for Primary’s!)

None of the doctor’s I talked to ever let on about what could happen if they didn’t get the battery out—perhaps not to make us worry more than necessary—but I knew, and I had plenty of time to research it more on my phone in all the waiting that day. If the battery had passed beyond her stomach, there was risk that it would break open and start to burn the inside of her intestines causing all kinds of problems. Sometimes the batteries pass out fine, sometimes (rarely) it kills the kid. I prayed and prayed that the battery would still be in her stomach or that it would pass out quickly if they couldn’t get it.

She went in to surgery about 5 hours after she swallowed the wretched thing and I cried for the 100th time. Colin and I sat in the OR waiting room. Another family was in there—their child’s emergency surgery, whatever it was, was going to take 4-5 hours. Natalie procedure was less than 15 minutes. I don’t understand how exactly it worked, but the put a scope down into her stomach and I’m not sure if the suck up the foreign body or grab it or what. 

After not too long of a wait, Dr. Patel walked into the waiting room and I saw he was holding one of those medical specimen cups and I about leapt out of my seat for joy because I knew what was in it. He asked if we would like a battery and handed us the cup. (He looked rather pleased with himself that they were able to get it.) I noticed that the battery had started to corrode which was scary.

Finally I could stop freaking out. Finally it was going to be okay. The relief was sweeter than anything I have ever tasted. Finally other thoughts could enter my mind--I realized I hadn’t ate, drank, gone to the bathroom in several hours.

 The last part of our ordeal was Natalie recovering and waking up from the anesthesia. They took us to her and had her sitting up in a bed. She looked so groggy and grumpy. They asked “does she take a bottle?” and there was a bottle of juice they had been trying to give her. I told them “no” and that seemed to explain why she wouldn’t drink for them. They had me nurse her—she had all kinds of lines connected to her so it was tricky. She was so sleepy she was having a hard time latching on, although vigorously looking for it (she was pretty hungry)—I thought that was pretty cute. She slowly woke up over the next hour and a half and ate several more times and started playing and talking to us. It was 7:00 when we left Primary Children’s. The whole thing was a seven hour ordeal over such a tiny little object.

The blessings in the story:

1. Colin had taken the day off and was there for the kids and me.
2. Colin had filled my van up with gas a couple of hours before.
3. Colin heard her cough and noticed the batteries—it probably would have taken us quite some time to figure out a battery was missing otherwise.
4. Natalie was happy and wasn’t uncomfortable or suffering the entire day.
5. I didn’t crash or get pulled over driving up to SLC.
6. Natalie had fabulous doctors and nurses that took very good care of her.
7. That we already met our deductible for the year giving birth to Natalie so this isn’t going to kill us financially. (And that we have good health insurance to begin with)
8. Biggest one: The battery didn’t get stuck in her esophagus (this is when they cause the most damage fast) or aspirate into her lungs or move into her intestine.
9. She will have no lasting damage and was on a whole pretty much unaffected by what happened.

 

I was disappointed we didn’t really get to have a Christmas Eve (be together as a family, Christmas soup, acting out the nativity, luminarias) but somehow having such a bad, scary Christmas Eve made us appreciate our family and our Heavenly Father and Savior a little more, making Christmas even more special and Holy.